Kids wowed by horseshoe crabs at Great Bay Discovery Center

STRATHAM — The shore of Sandy Point was filled with groups of children Wednesday night who gathered to see "the star of Sandy Point," the horseshoe crab.

Jennifer Feals

STRATHAM — The shore of Sandy Point was filled with groups of children Wednesday night who gathered to see "the star of Sandy Point," the horseshoe crab.

Each May and June, horseshoe crabs come into the Great Bay Estuary to spawn and on Wednesday, June 25, children and their families watched them travel from the water and onto the beach at high tide. The Great Bay Discovery Center offered a horseshoe program for families with a presentation on the aquatic arthropods, a visit to a touch tank, a walk down to the water to see the crabs and a craft to take home.

Volunteer Coordinator Sheila Roberge said the horseshoe crab has been the mascot of the Great Bay Discovery Center since it started almost 20 years ago. "We are always happy to talk about the horseshoe crab," she said.

The children and their families watched a presentation by Beth Heckman, assistant education coordinator, titled "Horseshoe Crab Tales," before separating in three groups which visited the different stations.

The horseshoe crab is an ancient arthropod and has been in existence for more than 445 million years, surviving the extinction of the dinosaurs. They are separated from a true crab by three features: they have no jaws, no strong claws and no antenna. They do not bite, pinch or sting.

Children felt free to touch the crabs and let them swim around their legs in the water. At the touch tank, they watched a horseshoe crab use its tail, which is there primarily to help them turn over if they get stuck on their shell-like back.

Dahlia Johnson, 6, and Alex Johnson, 5, of Kensington were the first children to walk right out into the water among the horseshoe crabs. Dahlia had four horseshoe crabs swimming around her feet. She said fish are her favorite water animals. "I really like to catch crabs," she said.

When the horseshoe crabs enter the estuary to spawn, males arrive on shores first and compete for females. They use special claws called pedipalps which they use to hook onto the female, pushing them onto shore.

Julie Defeo, 5, of Exeter, said she saw seven horseshoe crabs in the water. One male was pushing a female onto shore. "It was taking the little one for a ride," she said.

The horseshoe crabs nest underwater, leaving behind holes in the shore as the tide goes out. The females dig a nest which holds thousands of eggs. Wednesday night, children with Heckman on the shore found an egg which was tiny, green and rubbery shelled. After they emerge from the egg, baby crabs wash into the bay and can mature to live a 15- to 20-year lifespan in the wild.

Kendra Ruhmann, 10, of Kittery, Maine, said she learned a lot about horseshoe crabs Wednesday night, but was particularly fascinated with how many eyes they have.

Heckman said horseshoe crabs have 10 eyes and explained that the two the kids could see on top of the crabs heads are called compound eyes, meaning they have "many of the same object in their view." She passed around a prism for kids to look through and see just what that might be like.

"I knew they had two eyes, but never would have thought they had 10," Kendra said.

Kendra and others were also surprised to learn that the horseshoe crab is the most studied marine invertebrate in the world. Its blood, which is blue, is used to test intravenous medications and equipment before they are used on humans.

"If their blood comes into contact with something that could be harmful to you, it gels up like Jello," Heckman told the group.

"I knew that some animals have different colored blood, but I am not an expert on animals, so I learned a lot," said Kenra.

The Great Bay Discovery Center is open Wednesday through Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Call the center at 778-0015 for more information and visit www.greatbay.org for the summer schedule.

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